The Day I Stopped Apologizing for Leaving

You never truly loved me.You loved the image of me—what I represented, what I gave, what I carried.You loved the comfort of my body beside you, the illusion of wholeness I brought when your own reflection felt too heavy to hold.

When life was good and you liked who you were, you showed up... briefly. But even then, it wasn’t about love. It was about keeping your world intact—expecting me to be the glue, the peacekeeper, the reason you could feel like a man.

You thrived on being the hero. The man who loved the child that wasn’t his. The man who saved the broken woman society had written off. You loved the story—but not the soul inside it.

And I was broken. I was crawling through a storm, terrified of losing my daughter, holding on by threads of hope. You didn’t rescue me—you saw the cracks and used them to wedge yourself in.

When I found out I was carrying your child, my heart shattered. I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman staring back. I felt lost, ashamed, imprisoned in a life I never wanted—a life that looked like survival dressed up as love.

So I gave everything I had to my children. Every ounce of energy, every drop of worth, every flicker of light.I gave them the love I was dying to receive. I emptied myself trying to fill them—trying to make the pain mean something.

And then I filled the void again... with another child. Not because I was whole, but because I didn’t know how to be empty.

You weaponized our life—our children, our years, our memories—like they were proof I owed you something. You told me I was cruel, heartless…“How could I walk away after two decades?”

But when I looked at you without the buffer of little arms holding us together, I saw what I hadn’t wanted to admit: There was nothing there.

No friendship. No tenderness. No knowing who I truly was.

You didn’t love me. You never did. You loved the idea of me—what I gave, what I symbolized, what I made you feel like.

And while you were busy loving the idea, I was slowly dying inside, alone in a marriage that looked whole from the outside but hollowed me out one piece at a time.

But I am no longer mourning the version of me that stayed.

I am rising—not loud, not angry—but steady.

I am reclaiming the pieces of myself I buried for the sake of your comfort.

And this time, I choose me.